"Neither will I of you … ever." She was driving him deeper into bondage. He loved it. He drove back into her and she pulsed her sheath around him until he groaned. "Tormentress. But just wait. I, too, will drive you to insanity and beyond."
In response to his erotic menace, she tossed her arms over her head, arched her vision of a body, thrust her tormenting breasts against his chest and purred low with aggressive surrender.
Still jerking with the electrocuting release, he turned her around, brought her over him, her shudders resonating with his.
"Give me your lips, ya talyeti … " he gasped, needing the emotional surrender to complete the carnal abandon.
She groped for his lips, fed him her life and passion. Then her lips stilled, still fused to his, as sleep claimed her.
Only then did he let go. And he slept. Truly slept for the first time since he'd gone to rescue her.
She wanted to lie on him forever.
For the past four days she'd gone to sleep like that, after nights of escalating pleasure and abandon.
She propped herself up to wallow in his splendor.
Unbelievable. That just about summed him up.
Just looking at him, her heart tried to burst free of its attachments and her breath wouldn't come until she bent closer to draw it mingled with his beloved scent.
He smiled in his sleep, rumbled, "Ahebbek."
I love you. She caught his precious pledge in an open-mouthed kiss. He instantly stirred, dauntingly aroused, returned the kiss then took it over, took her over.
"Ahebbak," she gasped her acute pleasure and total love, as he swept her around, bore her down and thrust into her, knowing he'd find her ready and unable to wait. Their hunger was always too urgent at first, it took only a few greedy tastes of each other, a few unbridled thrusts, to have them convulsing in each other's arms, their pleasure complete.
After the ecstasy he drove her to demolished and re-formed her around him, he twisted again to bring her over him.
He sighed in contentment. "Aashagek."
He'd explained what that meant. Eshg was a concept that had no equivalent in English. More comprehensive than love, too carnal for adoration and as reverent as worship. It fit perfectly.
"Wana aashagak." She rose over him, took a deep breath. "And I can't believe I thought of this only minutes ago, but I wasn't in any condition to think of anything beyond you." She knew this would intrude on the perfection. But she had to say it. "I want you to know everything."
Harres stiffened beneath her. She frowned in alarm as he disentangled himself from their fusion, sat up. It was one of the few times she'd seen him totally serious.
"This time is ours, ya nadda jannati. We will not bring anything or anyone into it. Plenty of time for that when we rejoin the world. Now only you and I matter, ya malekat galbi."
Talia shivered at the intensity of passion that permeated his voice. He'd just called her the owner of his heart. By now, she was certain she was.
She was also certain it wouldn't matter.
When they rejoined the world, it would tear them apart.
There was only one thing to do now. Cling as hard as she could to her remaining time with him. And tell him what he needed to know. "I need to tell you."
His golden eyes were explicit with his aversion to letting the world intrude on them now instead of later. But he finally squeezed them shut, giving his reluctant consent.
And she started. "A month ago, I got a letter. It was addressed to Todd. He'd been living with me since he came back from Azmahar, before his conviction. All his mail comes to my house, and I take it to him when I visit. But something made me open this one. Two things. That all mail so far carried only more bad news, and I decided that this time, I'd try to do something about it and tell him only if I failed. The other reason was that it had Zohaydan stamps."
His eyes went dark. He just nodded for her to go on.
"I didn't know what to expect, but it certainly wasn't what I found." She shuddered again with the memory of the explosive emotions the letter had elicited. "The writer said he knew who was involved in framing Todd, that he could expose them, exonerate him. He asked that Todd come to Zohayd, where he'd supply him with the information. He had a huge stake in exposing them, too, but he needed it to be at a stranger's hand. And who better than someone they'd so deeply wronged?
"I realized only after I'd read the letter a dozen times that the writer didn't know Todd was in no position to fulfill his demand. There was an email included, so they could drum out details of the 'mission,' as he called it. I wrote an email explaining the situation, but accepting their mission in Todd's place. Then, right before I hit Send, I reconsidered. If the writer knew Todd was already convicted, he might give up on the whole thing. And from Todd's reports on the region, I thought he would balk at doing business with a woman. Not to mention that a female foreigner on her own would draw too much attention, all of the unwanted variety. And my plan formed.
"If this person didn't know Todd was in prison, then I could go as him. I had his passport, and I could pass for him with some disguise. I created a new email with Todd's name, emailed him with my acceptance. I got a response within an hour. All I had to do was buy a plane ticket to anywhere in the world to get into the airport's departure gates. Someone would meet me with a pass to a private-jet flight, so I could slip into the region without record of my entry. That worried me, about my departure, but I rationalized they would want me to leave, to carry out their exposé for them. I thought I could also run to the American Embassy if I got into trouble.
"They brought me here. I demanded the info I came for, and my contact told me it was bigger than I thought, that 'my' problems were a part of something that could not only exonerate 'me' but that would destroy the Aal Shalaans, as they deserved to be. Then he called on the cell phone they'd given me. He used one of those electronic voice distorters, said he couldn't afford to ever be linked to what he was about to reveal, wouldn't leave anything to be tracked back to him. And he told me about the stolen and counterfeited Pride of Zohayd jewels, and the consequences that would have for the Aal Shalaans and their regime. I asked how that would help 'me' and he only said I was a bright lad, would work out how to use that info to my benefit. When I started to protest, he said he was in a very sensitive position, had to go now or risk exposure, but that he'd call me later with more info.
"I emailed Mark Gibson, Todd's lawyer and our childhood friend, to ask his opinion. I didn't specify what my contact had told me, just that I possessed info that could bring the royal house of Zohayd down. Two hours later, I was snatched from my rented condo. The next thing I remember was waking up in that hole in the desert. The rest you know."
Then she felt silent. And realized that tears were streaming down her face. Reliving those past events and anticipating even more anguish and hopelessness, not only for Todd but for her and Harres in the future, broke her heart.
Harres's bleak eyes were eloquent with his acknowledgment of the validity of her trepidation. He said nothing, just pulled her back into his arms. Soon, he was kissing her, inflaming her, taking her with a new edge of recklessness, of desperation.
The dread that their time together was counting down to a crushing end made their hunger explosive, their mating almost violent, their ecstasy almost damaging.
Afterward, she lay curved into his body, quivering with the enormity of it all. He pretended to be asleep. She knew he wasn't.
She couldn't sleep, either.
She wondered, once she lost him, if she'd ever sleep again.
As night deepened, the oasis's unique environment somehow warded off the bitter cold of the desert. Even if it had been as bone-chilling as it had been during their trek, Harres wouldn't have felt a thing. He was burning up, from the inside out.
She'd finally fallen asleep. He'd left her side, gone out to try to find air to breathe.
He couldn't find any in the vastness around him.
He stumbled to a stop at the far edge of the cottage's garden, stared up at the preternaturally clear and steady stars. They blurred, swam. The heat seething inside him was filling his eyes with the moisture of frustration and despondence. Just as he'd seen in hers. It had hurt, still did, like a knife in his gut.
What hurt more was that he couldn't wipe those feelings away. He couldn't promise her what he wasn't certain he could deliver. Promises now would torment her with hope. That was even more agonizing than resignation, and if for any reason he failed to keep them, the crash to despair would be far more devastating. He would do whatever it took to secure her happiness. But until he did, he had to keep silent, had to suffer her suffering. And love her with all of his being.